After a brief stint in pre-med, Kevin Mabry swapped his white lab coat for cocktail shakers at spots like Connecticut’s Bar Americain and Boston’s own JM Curley. Now the 28-year-old calls the shots as bar manager at Capo in Southie, cultivating the best experience for guests and educating staff on the art of hospitality. “You can teach anyone how to make a drink,” he says of the business, “but what matters most is being very open, welcoming and hospitable in general.” Below, the busy bar man takes a moment to mull on the transcendent power of the bar, the (200-plus!!) bottles he keeps at home and what’s trending next in the Boston beverage scene.
How did you first get involved in restaurants and bartending?
My parents owned a sports bar growing up so I was always going in Saturday and Sunday mornings to clean up after the big night and stock the shelves and things of that nature. I was really enamored with the relationships that were built over the bar. I always saw the regulars coming in and hanging out with the bartenders and thought that it was a really cool neighborhood dynamic that we kind of cultivated.
The cliché is the lone customer getting drunk and pouring his heart out to the bartender – is that something you’ve experienced?
Oh on a day-to-day basis, absolutely. Bars have this ability to bring people in and we are that transcendent space. I always use that word to my staff members; we are transporting people to a lack-of-worries environment. We are able to take people in and, for the time they are at the bar stool or table, we’re crafting an experience for them—that’s not something we take lightly. We take a lot of pride knowing that we’re able to be the cheaper therapy for people, essentially. And I like to go to someone else’s bar and let them craft my experience as well. It’s an art form almost.
What’s your favorite drink to make?
I’d say my favorite drinks to make are simply Old Fashioneds. I like being able to tell people that Old Fashioneds are a style drink and not necessarily a bourbon or rye concoction. You can make an Old Fashioned out of anything with different base spirits, you know – your sugar, your waters, your bitters. And that for a lot of people is still not common knowledge. Any drink that I can make and tell a story to someone or make the world smaller around them, that’s the kind of drink I like to make. My least favorite drink…. I don’t know if I really have a least favorite drink to make. I like making them all.
What do you usually keep stocked at home?
I’ve got too many. I think I have about 200 wine bottles at home at all times for the most part. For white wine right now I’m very much into anything coming out of Italy. Anything coming out of there, like Arnaise, that is one of my favorite varietals right now. I love Sauvignon Blanc it has been one of my favorites and still is today. For reds, I kind of go back and forth. I don’t really have a favorite or go-to but I’d say everyday drinkers are some sort of blend. I like things that have a three-dimensional quality to them from start to finish and I think you find that in a lot of red wine these days.
Are there any trends that you’ve noticed in the Boston bar scene recently?
The trends that I see people picking up are different vessels to drink out of, like different glassware, antique glassware, seeing whether the glass can tell a story as well. I think that’s something you’ll see coming out soon, it’s something I really enjoy, too. I love glassware; vintage glassware is something I kind of want to push. But I don’t think you’ll find a Boston bartender that doesn’t know the spots to find them in town. We’ve all exhausted our efforts within a 100-mile square radius. I also don’t think we’ve seen the end of the low-proof and low-wine spirits. I think it’s become more about the means of the experience than the actual hedonistic consumption.
